Operating system design notes
The following pages describe briefly ideas for creating a replacement operating system targeted primarily for desktop use. Some of the principles described stem from discussions with Jennifer Elaan regarding a proposed new operating system of Cy/VOS (Cybernetic Virtual Operating System), and thus some of the ideas and nomenclature will be hers. Detailed notes were added to the Cy/VOS wiki, which on investigation appears to have been created in 2004 and gone offline around 2007. There is no proposal here to create Cy/VOS or any other operating system, as society has passed the point of no return; these pages are just shouting into the emptiness.
The Cy/VOS wiki contained a vast amount of notes. There is no plan at present to recreate that level of information.
- The present
- Principles
- Architecture
- Performance
- Complexity — Complexity and self-evident simplicity
- API
- Message passing
- Multidimensional Filing System — AKA “MDFS”
- Layer Config
- Information
- Packages
- Software repositories
- Applications
- Events
- Errors
- Components
- Logging
- File formats
- Security
- Boot process
- Backwards compatibility
- User interface — in general
- Keyboard
- Command line
- GUI — graphical interfaces specifically
- Display system — Low-level implementation of the visual display system
- Desktop environment
- Window Manager
- Menus
- Dialogue
- Controls
- Window content — Management of structured content of windows
- Pointing devices
- Themes — Visual themes to change window decoration and control styles
- Experience
- Semiotics — Standardisation of symbols and icons for consistency and clarity
- Control methods
- Notifications
- General concepts
- File types
- Refresh — Should refresh be manual or fully automatic (either but not both)
- Expressivity
- Matrix classification
- Saving changes
- State
- Development
- Comparisons
- Further reading
- Why?